Folks We need to have a documented procedure in place by the end of the next WG meeting for the affirmation and re-affirmation of WG chairs. I strongly feel that voting has no place in the running of RIPE working groups and also feel that inability to attend a RIPE meeting should not be a barrier to either becoming a chair or participating in the selection process. So I propose the following procedure. 1. A call for interested parties is made on the WG mailing list at yearly intervals 2. Interested parties have 2 weeks to make their interest known, again on the mailing list 3. The DB-WG chairs issue a call for discussion as per normal. WG members express their approval or otherwise of the presented candidates. 4. After two weeks the chairs declare consensus as they would do for a policy proposal I would propose a maximum number of 3 co-chairs. If at the end of the discussion phase there are more than 3 proposed co-chairs then a call is made for any of the candidates to withdraw. If there are still more than 3 candidates then names are put into a hat and the first three names drawn from the hat will take on the role of chairs for the next 12 months. Comments are welcome. Best regards Nigel